I’ve written several times about the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) convened by President Obama to seriously address the critical international negotiations this year. Most of the governments that contribute 80% of the total GHG emissions have been engaged since April in extensive discussions. The leaders of the MEF countries will be in Italy next week and there are some hopeful expectations. Reuters reports here that we could see a “…decisive step forward in talks for a U.N. climate change pact due to be signed in December.” Reuters reported yesterday that Obama’s climate leadership faces test with this meeting. “‘This is really a chance for President Obama to bring what he’s most known for here in the U.S. — hope and change — into the climate dialogue internationally,’ said Keya Chatterjee, director of international climate negotiations at environmental group WWF in Washington.”
Although China has often been characterized as one of the most recalcitrant of the developing economies on climate change, India seems to have its heels pretty well dug in at the moment. This article, also from Reuters, quotes the Indian environment minister, Jairam Ramesh: “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and over-riding priorities.”
Last week, Alistair Doyle, the environment correspondent from, you guessed it – Reuters – wrote here that there did, however, appear to be some major points of agreement. For one thing, the MEF may seek “an aspirational global goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050, with developed countries reducing emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.” (The Waxman-Markey bill, passed last week in the US House of Representatives, attempts to hit that mark, or pretty near.) Doyle also says that the MEF “…will seek to double public investments in low-carbon technology by 2015 and boost funding from both public and private sources as well as from carbon markets to fight global warming.”
This meeting should be construed as a critical one. If we come out of Italy without a major announcement or at least a very strong signal on a realistic framework for getting all the major economies into a binding framework – with teeth – then the run up to Copenhagen is going to be all that more frenzied and chaotic. There are, as this blog has been reporting consistently, scores of important indications that we’re finally getting at the problem but, if this group doesn’t come together, it is going to make progress more-than-a-bit difficult.
Meanwhile, it is entirely worth noting in this context that British PM Gordon Brown made a landmark speech last week on his vision of a Roadmap to Copenhagen. The BBC said here that Brown’s proposal for a £60bn annual fund to help poor countries deal with climate change mitigation and adaptation was welcomed by environment and anti-poverty campaigners. Brown likened the course that we need to take on climate change to be as important as the Bretton Woods agreements and the Marshall Plan. Here is a bit of what some might characterize as language that one doesn’t often hear from politicians. It’s worth pondering.
Success will require two major shifts in how we think – as policy makers, as campaigners, as consumers, as producers, as a society. The first is to think not in political or economic cycles; not just in terms of years or even decade-long programmes and initiatives. But to think in terms of epochs and eras – and how our stewardship will be judged not by tomorrow’s newspapers but by tomorrow’s children.
And the second is to think anew about how we judge success as a society. For sixty years we have measured our progress by economic gains and social justice. Now we know that the progress and even the survival of the only world we have depends on decisive action to protect that world. In the end, without environmental stewardship, there can be no sustainable prosperity and no sustainable social justice.
